t one is being told so
constantly that this-and-that "will cut no ice," that it is
satisfactory to be able to report that those French-Canadians cut ice
in the most efficient fashion. My sole building implement was a kettle
of boiling water. I placed ice-blocks in a circle, pouring boiling
water between each two blocks to melt the points of contact, and in
half an hour they had frozen into one solid lump. I and a friend
proceeded like this till the ice-walls were about four feet high,
spaces being left for the door and windows. As the blocks became too
heavy to lift, we used great wads of snow in their stead, melting them
with cold water and kneading them into shape with thick woollen gloves,
and so the walls rose. I wanted a snow roof; had we been mediaeval
cathedral builders we might possibly have fashioned a groined and
vaulted snow roof, with ice ribs, but being amateurs, our roof
perpetually collapsed, so we finally roofed the hut with
grooved-and-tongued boards, cutting a hole through them for the
chimney. We then built a brick fire-place, with mantelpiece complete,
ending in an iron chimney. The windows were our great triumph. I filled
large japanned tea-trays two inches deep with water and left them out
to freeze. Then we placed the trays in a hot bath and floated the
sheets of ice off. They broke time and time again, but after about the
twentieth try we succeeded in producing two great sheets of transparent
ice which were fitted into the window-spaces, and firmly cemented in
place with wet snow. Then the completed hut had to be furnished. A
carpenter in Ottawa made me a little dresser, a little table, and
little chairs of plain deal; I bought some cooking utensils, some
enamelled-iron tea-things and plates, and found in Ottawa some crude
oleographs printed on oil-cloth and impervious to damp. These were duly
hung on the snow walls of the hut, and the little girls worked some red
Turkey-twill curtains for the ice windows, and a frill for the
mantelpiece in orthodox south of England cottage style. The boys made a
winding tunnel through the snow-drifts up to the door of the hut, and
Nature did the rest, burying the hut in snow until its very existence
was unsuspected by strangers, though it may be unusual to see clouds of
wood-smoke issuing from an apparent snow-drift. That little house stood
for over three months; it afforded the utmost joy to its youthful
occupiers, and I confess that I took a great paternal prid